Jeff Poor

On Thursday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke about the possibility that ABC News is sitting on a potentially career-ending interview with his second ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich.

Gingrich declined to speak on the matter itself, but urged co-host Ann Curry to consult his two daughters. He also urged ABC News not to air the interview, since it was based on family matters more than a decade old.

“I’m not going to say anything negative about Marianne,” Gingrich said. “My two daughters, Kathy and Jackie have sent a letter to the president of ABC News, saying, from a family perspective, they think this is totally wrong. They think ABC should not air anything like this, and that intruding into family things that are a decade — more than a decade old — are simply wrong. Now, I let my daughters speak for it. I’m sure they’d be glad to come on and chat about it. I’m not going to comment about it. I’m focused on the big issues that concern the American people, which are the current challenges we have, largely because of the failure of the Obama presidency.”

Gingrich’s two daughters are from his first marriage.

The former speaker spoke to his own character, and blamed the “elite media” for focusing on this story and ignoring the failures of President Barack Obama.

“I think that my two daughters are very credible on my character,” he said. “I think the people who have known me a long time are credible on my character. I think we have lots of folks willing to speak about this. I’m not going to. People will have to judge me. I’m a 68-year-old grandfather. They see how close I am to my wife Calista, and how close I am to my daughters and son-in-laws, to my two grandchildren, Maggie and Robert. They’ll have to make their mind up. But 16-and 20-year-old stories — we have real stories this week on the failure of the Obama administration. And I realize that some of the elite media would like to do almost anything other than cover his failures.”